Episode #94

Hoarding Behavior & CBT

What is hoarding disorder?

Why does a person develop hoarding behavior?

What does it look like?

How can you identify and manage it?

Join me, Dr Julie Osborn, as I share with you how cognitive behavioral therapy can help you with hoarding behavior.

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Full Episode Transcript

Hi everyone! This is Dr. Julie from My CBT Podcast. I'm a licensed clinical social worker. I have a doctorate in Psychology and I specialize in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. I'm here to help you bring the power of CBT into your own life.

So let me start off with sharing an email - as I do - that I get from all you guys, which I really appreciate. And this is what my podcast will be on today.

So it says,

“Hey Dr. Julie,

“I wrote you an email previously thanking you for your podcast and letting you know how much it's helped me and my patients.

“I continue to prescribe podcast episodes as a tool to help retain brain patterns that are causing distress. I relisten to podcasts while I'm working in the yard. However, I'm hoping you will consider a podcast episode on hoarding or hoarding-like behaviors. I grew up in a house with both parents having these tendencies. Now I want to change those thought patterns so I can better see what things are important, what I need and what I can leave in my life.

“I do not want to leave anything for my children to clean up and I want to get healthy to be a good example to them.

“I've tried Marie Kondo, sorting bins, etc. And while I am better than I was, I can feel there's a mental block that I'm not aware of. I'm not sure if you have patterns you see in these types of clients or things that really trigger them or prevent them from moving forward. However, if you have or do, please consider a podcast on this topic. I know it will be well accepted.

“Please continue to laugh, be vulnerable and share a song with your mantra. Thank you so much.”

So I’ll keep your name confidential. But I really appreciate that email.

And again, this really helps me come up with different ideas on things that will benefit you guys the most because there's my intention is getting CBT out to everyone and I want it to be on topics that really resonating can make a difference for you guys in your life. So I'm going to be talking about Hoarding today. So let me clarify what Hoarding is.

So the basic definition of courting disorder is a persistent difficulty discarding or parting with possessions because of perceived need to save them. So perceived is what we're going to focus on as well today, where CBT can come in and help someone who is a hoarder to make some changes regarding that, being able to get rid of things, understand the connection. What's their perception of why they need to keep these things, but see how it's really affecting their life in a negative way. Because it is a problem. It is a mental health issue.

And so what are some underlying mental health issues where Hoarding can be part of that pattern or that behavior? Although it's a disorder in itself but definitely obsessive compulsive disorder. So a lot of people with OCD, this might be one of their compulsions. It's to save things and not get rid of things. Also, people with post traumatic stress, if you have severe depression, any psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia, and also some people with ADHD as well.

So it doesn't mean if you have OCD, PTSD, severe depression, ADHD, it doesn't mean that you're going to hoard. But I'm just letting you know that those are some of the other mental health issues out there that also can cause hoarding as well. It also does run in families. Genetic is one part, but your environment definitely plays a role as well. What are some common types of hoarding?

If you're thinking, I'm not sure what that means, does it matter what you hoard? Not that it matters, but some common ones. There's some people hoard animals, right? We hear sometimes on the news a house has been found with like 50 cats, right? A lot of people hoard books, papers, they think that they need to keep every check register they've ever had for 50 years, or bank statements or things like old, maybe you had a car and then you sold it, and you keep the paperwork for that, stuff like that.

And then also food is also one thing that a lot of people hoard. If you've ever watched that, there's a TV show, right, called Hoarders, and a lot of times they open up people's refrigerators. This is, you know, really severe cases because it's on television, but you'll see that freezer, you can hardly close the fridge, and there's been food in there for years and years and years. So that's not all people hoard, but those are really common things that people do hoard. Also, some research, just to share a little bit, is a lot of times hoarders are often very intelligent people.

They're very well educated, but they have this profound inability to make decisions, right? So that's where, you know, should I keep it? Should I not? Is it important? And even though their life ends up kind of being controlled by their hoarding, they do tend to feel embarrassed and uncomfortable when others see it.

So they might isolate. They may not ever have you come to their home. They don't want to share this with others, although they're feeling stuck that they can't change either. There was a study, cognitive behavioral therapy study for hoarders, and they reported that 70% to 80% improved gravely after nine to twelve months of therapy. And after a year, most of them maintain their improvement.

So it's pretty good outcome if you're really willing to put in the work. If you're not willing to put any work and not get any help, the research shows that most people aren't going to make any changes. So there is help. That's why I'm doing this podcast, and hopefully you guys will learn some tools or maybe get to a point where you're willing to reach out. I'm going to talk about what the warning signs are.

I'm going to talk about how to talk to someone in your life that's a hoarder. If you want to help, maybe you can help them shift and start thinking about things differently. So there's all kinds of good tools out there. And the way that someone who has a hoarding disorder thinks, right, they're hot thoughts is what allows them to continue. But we also have to understand what's the purpose, because it's serving some need, which most likely is some underlying anxiety or his depression.

There's a purpose. They're not just saving things for no reason. They really find a purpose in it, and again, their perception. So another root causes as well, let's talk about other than just mental health issues is some hoarders have had very difficult experiences in the past. And with that comes very painful feelings.

They may have a hard time expressing them, facing them, or finding ways to resolve them. So a lot of times clients have shared that hoarding helps them cope with other mental health issues. And sometimes it's a really good distraction for them from their anxiety. So, like so many things, right, that I talk about addictions, all different things that we do in our lives, a lot of times that bandaid, right? We go from mood to behavior.

I feel anxious, so I'm going to hoard whatever, I'm going to go buy more things or keep things or whatever it is that I do regarding hoarding that's going to make me feel better. So that's the behavior I've talked about lots of times with you guys, with CBT, that, you know, most of us live from mood to behavior. We feel uncomfortable with the mood, right? And then we pick a behavior, makes it feel better, but it's a bandaid because we come back right to that mood because we're not really fixing anything, because we're not figuring out why we have that mood, right? So with CBT, we can figure out what am I thinking that's causing me to feel this way, then I can challenge it.

That's going to help me change my behavior, change my physical reactions. And then, of course, we always want to look at the environment, right? Again, the environment with hordes is a big issue here because it's in their environment. They're living in it on a daily basis. I have met some people where, you know, they have a nice sized house and they got one room they're living in because all the other rooms are full of stuff.

Some people I've seen homes where there's a pathway through the living room to the kitchen to the bathroom because there's just so much stuff. I don't know if you guys have ever seen a neighbor open up the garage and it's like filled to the max and even overwhelms you, you're like, oh my God, how are you ever going to get through that? So there's lots and lots of different ways that people live within this disorder and never change. You don't ever get better. And a lot of times I think it's when it affects other people, right?

Maybe even neighbors. I've heard people reporting some homes that are really, you know, extreme. A lot of times when people hoard paper, they're worried about fire hazards. Sometimes you can get infested, stay with rats. There's lots of things that happen, so sometimes somebody might intervene.

A family member. I did have one time, some children that met with me because her mom was a hoarder and they wanted her to have help. And their other concern was when my mom goes, I'm going to be stuck with this house. I'm sure many of you guys could share a story with me about that where the parent dies, and now you have this house of hoarding that you have to go through. So they wanted to bring her in to address the hoarding, but also to be able to go through and get things in a better place for when she goes and they're not going to be stuck with this, which is all legit.

And, you know, luckily we had success. The mom came in, she agreed, you know, she actually had money, so she bought really nice things. So she was really able to rationalize why it was good to keep. It was going to be a gift. I was going to give this person, my grandkids, the daughters like, we don't want it, we don't need it.

So they've literally got a dumpster that the mom let them bring to the house. And they actually went through it. And I actually only saw him for a few sessions, so that was a success story. It doesn't always work out that way, but I do remember that. And I thought, good for them for coming together as a family, reaching out.

The mother felt their love and concern, didn't feel judged and was open to getting the help. So we'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute about things you can do to help somebody. But I just wanted to share with you what are some of the root causes, because we really have to have empathy for those in our lives or for yourself if you're a hoarder and you're looking for help. So there's three different signs of hoarding I wanted to share and talk about a little bit, but just be more clear. So one is excessive acquiring of items that are not needed and the person has no space for.

Number two is a persistent difficulty throwing out or parting with things regardless of their actual value. And a third is feeling a need to save items and being upset by the thought of discarding them. So these are some warning signs that you or a loved one might be hoarding also. Those are kind of the three main ones. And then to break that down again.

It's an inability to get rid of things. Also, there's severe anxiety in getting rid of things. It's not just like, OK, go ahead. Like, there's this anxiety of like, oh, I might need that. That's the big, you know, hot thought that a lot of hoarders have.

Like, I might need that one day, so I need to keep it. Another warning sign is if the person is in denial, that there's even a problem if somebody has obsessive thoughts and actions. Compulsive buying can be a warning sign. Always buying things, just maybe because they're on sale or they're a good deal, or I might need them down the road. Something else that we call clutter blindness.

Like, they don't even see the clutter in front of them. You might walk in and be like, oh, my God, I don't even know how you live here. And they're like, what? I know everything is it's all good, right? Another warning sign is chronic disorganization that will impede on your daily activity so you can't find things.

Things are in the way. You don't have enough room in your house, right, to organize your daily stuff, because you're just hoarding and rooms are being taken up. I know people that don't sleep in their beds anymore because there's just so much stuff. I mean, there's so many different examples. Another warning sign is if you're fearful of other people touching your things.

Right?

I know a story of someone who was at someone's house who was a hoarder. Not really serious, but enough. And it was on papers and they moved a bag over just to put a chair down by, like, the dining room table. And that person was like, where are you where are you moving now? Where are you going?

Relax, relax. I'm just moving it over here. So they're very hyper focused on who's touching what and things being moved, because maybe someone's going to get rid of them or they won't be able to find them. So these are all the things to look for within yourself and to look within others as well about what might be going on. Another interesting fact, research shows that men tend to hoard more than women and that they start at a younger age.

Didn't say why that was, but I just wanted to share that with you.

So if you are someone that hoards, you want to start asking yourself, based on using the cognitive therapy tools, what are your thoughts and feelings about your possessions? Right? And that might take a little time. What are my thoughts? Well, I just want them.

Why do you want them? Right. Why are they important to you? What are your beliefs about the importance of the objects that you have and what are the emotions that are associated with them? And you want to identify both positive and negative.

What are your positive beliefs about the items you have? You know, do they bring you pleasure do you enjoy them? And then what's the negative part? The anxiety? The guilt?

Maybe sadness? So when you can identify what your thoughts are and what the importance is, that's a start, right? We're not talking about getting rid of everything in your life, okay? It's not black and white. It's not all or nothing, but it's not serving you a healthy purpose at this point when you're hoarding things and it's getting in the way of your daily life, and it doesn't really fix your anxiety or your depression because it just continues on and on and on.

Again, it's that bandaid. I keep doing this. I keep doing this because I just feel better, right? And if you're getting angry with people that are saying you really need to clean your house, you need to stop this or this is a problem. So instead of being judgmental, being yourself up, take a minute, write down on a piece of paper what are my thoughts, what are my beliefs about the importance of the things that I have?

How do I think they serve me? What do I like, what don't I like? And to see which ones are hot thoughts and which ones might be facts for you. Again, a hot thought, which I mentioned earlier, might be, I'm going to need this in the future. Even though I have 100 Ziploc bags, I'm going to need one more box because what if I run out, right?

These are the kind of hothouse somebody has. I can't get rid of any of my papers ever, because one day I just might need them, right? So it sounds rational sometimes, but it isn't. And that's why professional help is something that is highly recommended to help you get better. Because it's just so hard.

And I understand it's so hard to make those changes and to really get on a better track, because it's not just someone coming in and cleaning your house if you're like, okay, come on in. We'll just get rid of things. We'll clean. Right. Bring in an organizer, right?

Professional organizer, which is a great thing to do as well. But just doing that is not going to fix this. This isn't someone that just has a messy house, right? And it's like, oh, great, now I'm kind of ahead of it. Now I can stay on track.

This is someone again who hoards bad. It's unmanageable. They can't live in their home comfortably. It's causing problems in their life, right? So it's not just cleaning the house because you'll just go back again.

It's just going to turn into what it was before, which has happened very often with clients. We need to understand, what is this behavior? What is hoarding serving for you? And let's deal with those thoughts. Let's deal with those traumas, those negative feelings that you have in your life about other things.

And then we can start slowly letting go of the hoarding behavior and really deal with what's going on in your life. Again, reaching out for help. If you're not real serious regarding if the Hoarding is a really, really serious problem in your life, you know what, maybe bringing in a professional organizer would be enough for you to kind of get started. If you think you're more kind of cluttering versus Hoarding, right, you have to be honest with yourself. But you know what?

I'd be open to that, which is for someone to come in and say, okay, we're keeping this, we're donating this, we're throwing this out. That's basically with the professional organizers. Those are like the three areas that they put things in from what I'm told. So if I'm open to that, go ahead. But otherwise I would really start with a therapist, usually a therapist that specializes with Hoarding.

Whenever possible, they're going to practice inside your home. That's what's really recommended. Whether it's a therapist, whether it's a professional coach, whether it's even your peers, we have to come into your environment because Hoarding is such a huge environmental issue, right? So we need to come into your home. That is what is preferred.

It's not always possible, but if you can, you want to let someone come in your home, even though you might feel embarrassed or ashamed to be able to walk through and really address what's there in front of you. And a professional therapist can really help you get to, what are your thoughts about all of this? Why are you afraid to let go of this? That can really make a huge difference.

The therapist as well as yourself, you guys can identify together how the experiences in your life have set into this excessive saving of things and the clutter in your life so you don't have to go it alone. Somebody else who's nonjudgmental and is just there to help can help you break all of that down and then change can happen. Another step your therapist may recommend initially would say to avoid stores or places that you tend to buy things right just at the beginning so we don't accumulate more. And then after time, we would do what we call exposure therapy, which is a type of CBT therapy as well. And it's very successful with anxiety that over time, you would go expose yourself to these places you normally buy, whether it's stores or safe flea markets or swap meat or wherever you go.

And it's an opportunity. The exposure is an opportunity to learn to tolerate your negative moods, the anxiety, the worrisome that you're feeling, challenging those beliefs at the same time about letting go of things and not buying, but being able to just walk through the mall or walk through, say, the swap meet and just kind of look at things, but not actually buy. That could create a lot of anxiety. Right? Because the behavior to deal with your anxiety is to buy stuff that makes you feel good for whatever reason that might be.

So first, as a therapist, I would say we're going to avoid going places. But then once we start working through things and we're able to identify what your thoughts and feelings are about your possessions, what they mean to you, being able to challenge them, coming up with more balanced thoughts, better ways to cope, processing what traumas you've had, negative feelings, all of those things, right? Then let's go back into those situations and see. Because those are situations at the grocery store, for example, if you heard food, you need food, sound like, well, don't worry about buying food anymore. You don't need to eat, right?

That's not going to work. So it's like, okay, I need to buy food. I need to buy supplies sometimes. How can I go and get just what I need? Or how can I walk through the mall and kind of window shop and not actually buy anything?

I need to build up my confidence that I can do that, that's having success here so that you can continue managing your life better, not going back to having your hoarding behaviors come back. Also, what's really important for you to know as the client, right, that if you're working with the therapist, the therapist is going to let you know that you're going to create the rules about how to sort through stuff, the decision making when you discard things. So I think it's really scary, which I understand, because if you've never got any help for this, you're like, you're not sure what that would look like. And I think a lot of Hoarders, because of their anxiety, go straight to like, oh, my God, there's going to help me through everything out. They're not going to understand why something is important to me, right?

So as the client, a good therapist is going to understand this, and they're going to give you that control. They're going to walk you through it because otherwise you might just save everything. But they're going to give you that control to say, okay, what are the rules here? What do you want to sort out first? How are we going to decide what we're going to keep if we discard things?

What kind of things can we decide? Like, yeah, we really need to throw that out. Or we can volunteer, we can donate it. Maybe you can pick a place you want to donate to so you can feel good about that. We're going to break it down, break it down, break it down, break it down.

So it's not so overwhelming, because I think it's very overwhelming to even get started when you think about a huge hoarding situation, right? So you're going to have control over the situation too. It's not someone just coming in and controlling you. It's step by step by step. That's what I was saying earlier, that study they did where they had a lot of success, you know, it was a nine to twelve month, you know, therapy, which really isn't a long time when you think of, you know, you've probably been hoarding for years and years.

Most people have been for years and years before they get help. Right? So 9012 months isn't really that long, but it takes time. Right. We got to obviously start at the beginning and work through and then we just don't walk into the house and say, okay, let's start cleaning up or we've got to talk it through.

How do we get here again? What are my thoughts, what are my beliefs, what are my perceptions about all this stuff I have? How is it serving me? How do I think it's serving me in a positive way? And for us to start challenging and finding more balanced thinking of how it's not 100% true that it's serving you in a positive way all the time.

So once you start using your CBT tools, hopefully having some professional help or having a coach or your peers, family members walk you through all this, we want to always focus on what's relapsed prevention, right? If I'm getting to a better place, I don't want to go back to where I was. And we want to develop good habits to replace the hoarding behaviors. So an example would be like if you do buy something, you want to put it away immediately after you bring it into the house. After you eat, you want to wash your dishes and put those away right away.

You want to remove trash or maybe recycling on a regular basis. You don't want things to build up. That's where the hoarding get started again. Right? And you want to also explore some possible, maybe future situations that might be really difficult for you.

I don't know what that would look like, but maybe the holidays are coming up and all the shopping and all the ads and all the cool stuff out there. If you're a shopper and you just buy, buy, buy, or buy gifts for years down the road, that might be a really stressful time, right? So whatever that might look like, you want to work with your therapist and say, okay, what are some future situations that are really challenging for me and what can I do regarding my relax prevention? So I continue with my good habits and I don't go back to my hoarding behaviors, right? So part of that obviously what I'm going to tell you is your CBT tools, right?

When you see a possible future situation, let's do a thaw record, right? What are my moods about that? What are my thoughts about it? Let's bail and set out and then we can decide what are my behaviors going to be, how am I going to handle it? So false records you can do about past situations that are still bothering you.

Current things, obviously, and things that are coming up. That's a great way to do a full record, right, is you're going to prepare for something. So, you know, I always say hope is not a plan, right? You want just hope that you handle it well or hope you can go shopping and not get 100 things, that type of thing. So you want to plan for it ahead.

So that's part of relapse of prevention. And again, if you're a buyer, you know, bring things in the house or you don't clean up or, you know, take the trash out. As I said, you want to do things like right away. You don't want to put them off. You don't want to procrastinate.

Now if you're someone listening today that wants to help someone in your life, I'm going to give you some tools for that as well by using your CBT tools as part of it. So one of the first things, one of the best ways to help someone is you really want to use respectful language with them. You don't want to call their stuff trash or junk, their things, their possessions, that they really are important to them. So you want to be respectful. You also don't want to overwhelm them by focusing, like, on a total clean up.

Like I was saying earlier, like, Malware is going to do all of this. It sounds great. And for you, that would feel good because you're not a hoarder, right? Like, oh my God, if I could just get this all clean and I could sit down and think and breathe. You want to, you know, remember, you need to be focusing on coming from where they are.

You also want to listen to what they want and what they're willing to work on. Okay? If you're going to buy them something, you want to really think carefully about the gift. Think about, is this something they could use? Is this just something else?

They may hoard, right? So be thinking carefully about the things you give them. You also don't want to pressure them to let you in their space. That goes back to being respectful. This is their space.

And you don't want to pressure them. You want to be able to start asking them maybe if they're like, no, I don't want you to come in to say, what are you thinking about me coming in? Right? That's the CBT stuff. Don't ask them about how you're feeling about it, or if they share their or I'm nervous or I'm embarrassed for you to come in.

That's a feeling, right? Why are you embarrassed? Why are you feeling that way with me? And whatever they say will be a thought. You're going to judge me.

You're going to think I'm dirty. You're going to think I don't care about my stuff. Those could all be hot thoughts. And then you can address those by saying, I'm not going to judge anything. I'm just here because I really care about you and I love you, and I believe this is.

Causing issues. I can't even come over and visit with you. I can't stay with you when I come to visit. If I'm out of town guests, for example, I want to come in to try to help make this better for you. And I'm here for good reasons and that's just a place to get started.

So that's just an example that's letting them know that you are there for them. You're not there for you, right? You're not there because it bugs you. You're there for them and you want to help them because you got to remember they're emotionally attached to things. Arguing with them can make things worse and then they might just shut you out.

And if you're a hoarder and someone's approaching you and you're listening to this podcast, let me say, first of all, if you are listening to this podcast and you're a hoarder, that tells me that you're open and you're looking for some help, right? So bravo to you for that, that you're at least willing to listen and you can even share if you're able to if somebody isn't respecting your space, just to tell them, you know, this isn't going to help me because I don't feel like you're respecting my space. And even though I know it's a problem, you need to respect, this is my space if you really want to help me. So if you're at that place, that's something you could share because when you guys are going to argue with each other, it just makes things worse. As I was saying.

And then, you know, you may just say, don't come in, I don't want you being here. So then you're pushing away help. And then the person, if you're the helper, they're going to push you away. So be mindful again what your feelings are about the person, about the hoarding behavior, about the situation, and use your CBT tools. You've learned for me to communicate with them, right?

So what I mean by that is like the Five Secrets of communication. I have podcasts on lots of different communication, so you can listen to those. But The Five Secrets, which is from Dr. David Burns Good Feeling, great books, talks about finding a nugget of truth in what they're saying. If the hoarder says, hey, all of these things to me are important, you say, yeah, you know what, they are important because they're your things.

I totally get that. Right. Starting off with you want to have tools. This is a really difficult disorder to treat if you don't understand and if you don't come from a loving, empathetic place. So take time.

You can't just bulldoze your way in and then be frustrated. The person doesn't continue to follow up because in your brain your thought is, this is all good, why don't they appreciate me? I wish somebody would do this for me if I was in their shoes. Those are your hot thoughts, right? And you're going to project that onto them, and it's just not going to work.

Other things you can do to help someone who is a hoarder is you can offer to take them to the doctor to see are there other mental health issues going on that is creating this hoarding behavior. You can suggest therapy to them, let them know cognitive behavioral therapy is a great therapy to get started with for this, and then encouraging them to declutter with kindness and compassion. Right. Just so you know, what would you be comfortable with? Can we start what's the smallest area we could start?

Like, let's clean out your bathroom, for example, so you can use your bathroom. Does that sound good to you? Right. You need to let people feel like they have control over their lives. So you always want to listen to them and empathize and also recognize any positive steps going forward.

And that's for yourself if you're the hoarder or if you're working with the hoarder. Right. That anything. If you got rid of one little bag of trash. Yes.

Yay, I'm clapping. Any step is a step. It's not about like, well, that wasn't too much, or oh, there's so much more left to do. I could just go on and on with my households. Right.

So we want to you know, I did something, right? I took it to the trash, I left it there. That's something else I've heard, right? As people have thrown things out for people that are hoarders and the hoarder goes out and pulls it out of the trash. I mean, there's just a million stories, but these things really do happen.

They really do happen. So you have to get to know whether your client or against a family member. You need to get to know them. It's not, you know, every hoarder isn't the same. What is their personal feelings?

What are your personal feelings regarding your possessions? Maybe understanding even if you're not a hoarder, you may have some things that are important to you, right. Why are they important to you? What meaning do they have? And maybe that can help you empathize and say, yeah, you know what?

I am connected to some things in my life. Not a hoarder, but yeah, I love, you know, having that. I love seeing that. I can tell you what's something that's important to me is. I have my dad's china, and actually, before he passed away, I said, dad, so that's really the only thing I want that's yours.

It was sentimental value. It was a whole story about how he ended up collecting his china. And I have it in my home in a china cabinet. I use it during the year. I just like looking at it when I walk by.

It reminds me of my father, and I know how much he loved it and the story behind it and all of those things. So I understand that there's a connection to things because it came from the family or whatever. So that's just an example. I understand not a hoarder, but I want to be able to use as an example to be able to empathize with somebody else, right. Who's putting that meaning on everything, which is the problem.

But I can at least share my empathy and recognize what maybe some of their thoughts are and be able to start helping them break that down. So I want to give you some tools for yourself. Obviously, if you're hoarding, I want to give you some tools. If you have someone in your life that's hoarding, how can I go about it? Maybe be more mindful about what's gotten in the way?

Why isn't that person let me help them? Is it the way I'm coming across?

And then if you are a hoarder, there is a twelve step group called Clutters Anonymous CLA. If you're interested and willing to go to a group or other people, this one's called Clutter's Anonymous. I'm sure there's people there that hoard as well, but it would be a place to be around other people in your community that really understand what you're going through. Right? So I want to just step back for a second and say going to the doctor to first get assessed for some mental health issues is important.

A lot of times with OCD or other more serious mental health issues, medication can really help here. So that's also something that you can at least assess for, doesn't mean it's forever. And a lot of people are nervous about going on medication, which I understand it's not always the answer, by any means, but sometimes, if it's a real serious mental health issue, it's a way to get started, to allow yourself to start using the therapy and getting ahead of the game, kind of right out of that black place of, like, okay, now I can actually do these things. I can show up for therapy because I can manage this horrible anxiety I feel or whatever from having these racing thoughts or any other issues you may be having to be able to start learning the CBT and use that. And then at some point with your doctors, you might get off the medication.

But depending on how serious everything is, it's always good to go to the doctor, get a good assessment, find out what's going on. You know, is it anxiety, depression, drive, OCD? You know, again, is it part of the ADHD? Lotte of the ADHD people get distracted easily, they leave things. I'm going to get to it later, they don't get back to it.

That's where they can end up with the hoarding. So there's lots of different things to look at, which is good, I think it's good to have lots of options on what could this be? Let's figure this out. If the person will let you go to the doctor's office with them, if there is family history, it's great to be able to give a good history so the doctor really understands the bigger picture. And like I said, there's lots of opportunities out there to get better if that's the choice that you make.

So I know I covered a lot today, but I hope it was helpful. I was trying to help. If you're hoarding, if you know somebody in your life, if you want just some steps to get started, I think the CBT is always a great foundation. Before you jump in to make changes, to first say, OK, what are my thoughts about all of this stuff that I have? You know, why am I having like, multiple animals when it's not even beneficial for them?

Why do I save every single paper I own? Why do I hoard all this food? There's usually something underlined because I think because people who are differently, that somebody might hoard food, another person, animals, you know, all those things I mentioned, what's that connection? It's not that hoarders. All hoard the same thing.

What's your connection to these things you're saving and keeping? Right? That's where we can start breaking all of this down and be able to change how you're thinking, to decrease your negative moods, to then change the behavior of needing to hold on to things and hoard. Right? Does that make sense?

So the CBT is a really good foundation, a good place to get started. So again, if this is for you or somebody, you know, pass it along. We're wanting to get the CBT tools out to as many people as we can because we know they can be so helpful. So that's it for today. Again, I hope this was helpful.

I appreciate you being here with me.

If you have a therapy question you'd like to be answered or in a suggestion for another podcast, you can always reach me at mycbtpodcast@gmail.com. I'll always check with you before I share your email regarding confidentiality. I won't share your name if you don't want me to, so you don't need to worry about that.

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